THE father of two murderers, who went on the run from the prison where he, too, was serving time for murder, has been found.

Samuel McKinley, 53, disappeared on December 22 last year – just four days after his sons Samuel, 25, and Jon, 23, were jailed for life at Winchester Crown Court.

They must serve at least 28 years for killing newsagent Choudhry Zishan, who was beaten to death in a six-minute attack in Eastleigh High Street last March.

But four weeks on, McKinley Snr has been found in the Republic of Ireland after turning up at a hospital complaining of chest pains.

He has been serving his sentence at a prison in Northern Ireland and was out on a pre-release work scheme when he fled.

McKinley Snr, then of Howard Road, Shirley, was tried at Winchester Crown Courtfor stabbing to death Robin Stoddart at a flat in Onslow Road in 1996.

He attacked drinking companion Mr Stoddart, 40, after a two-day binge. Mr Stoddart bled to death after an artery in his thigh was severed.

In an episode with echoes of the murder of Mr Zishan, he told the court that he was so drunk he could not remember what had happened. That was the same story that Jon McKinley told the same court during his and brother Sam’s trial earlier last month.

McKinley Snr is reported to have absconded twice before.

Newspapers in Ireland reported that he was a member of the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association.

A life sentence and minimum ten-year tariff was imposed on McKinley Snr in 1996. In 2012 he was jailed for two-and-a-half years for being unlawfully at large and breaching a suspended sentence.

Police in the Republic and Northern Ireland are now said to be in negotiations about McKinley’s return to custody.

He has a choice of going back over the border or facing extradition.